There is growing interest in research that informs more effective practices in employment services across Europe, Australia and the USA. However, despite the ever-expanding amount of research on the implementation and efficacy of various policy programmes in practice, the knowledge on how to bring unemployed individuals closer to the labour market remains ambiguous and inconclusive. This is especially so in the context of the more vulnerable unemployed, who face physical, mental and social challenges in addition to unemployment. In this article, we examine the existing literature in terms of its potential to inform (the development of) effective employment policies. On this basis, we outline an alternative approach based on the concept of relational causality, and discuss the implications of such an approach for applied policy research.
Self-efficacy is a pivotal element when the long-term unemployed are to increase their chances of labour market participation, making the ways in which clients' beliefs in their capabilities are reflected in the delivery of public employment services particularly relevant. While existing research has pointed to the importance of both meetings with social services and self-efficacy for return to work, little knowledge exists on how self-efficacy is managed in these meetings. However, if social work professionals are to effectively enhance clients' selfefficacy, knowing that self-efficacy is important is not enough; knowing how to support self-efficacy becomes crucial. Based on observational data material from a qualitative study following 14 Danish vulnerable welfare recipients, we find that employability self-efficacy can be expressed by clients in strong, weak or ambiguous ways and that social work professionals responses to clients' expressions can range from supporting to transferring to challenging. Insight into the detailed ways in which self-efficacy is managed in the institutional framework of employment services, we argue, provides a starting point for reflexive consideration on how to develop employability self-efficacy in practice.
Client participation is one of the social work’s central ideals, yet several studies have illustrated the challenges around including client perspectives in decision-making and action-planning procedures in institutional settings. The present study explores how social workers can help clients form and expresses their views to influence decisions about how to proceed in their case. We use a discourse analysis methodology focused on naturally occurring interactions in meetings in which a client initiative has consequences for the decisions made. Our analysis illustrates a process where the social worker assists the client in taking the initiative to form and express their views about how to proceed in the case followed by joint exploration, adjustment and concretisation of the client’s initiative into an institutional referral. This account casts participation in conversation as more than the acceptance or implementation of clients’ ideas or requests. Rather, participation in this setting is a negotiated activity that entails supporting clients in developing thoughts and ideas about how to achieve their long-term goals within the available framework of institutional resources. The analysis offers concrete implications for practice, as the single case illustrates interactional practices involved in facilitating client participation within a welfare-to-work context.
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